The Best Diet for Parakeets

Parakeets are exotic birds from Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Central and South America. They have been enjoyed as pets worldwide since ancient times. Parakeets are intelligent, have outgoing personalities and are friendly and active. They can be easily trained and love to learn. To keep your parakeet healthy, feed him a variety of foods.

  1. Basic Diet

    • The basis of a parakeet's diet will center around a good-quality, organic if you can find it, seed mix developed for parakeets. Read the box to determine if the mix contains potentially harmful additives. A good mix will contain bits of dried fruit, veggies and possibly even herbs and greens. Some might even contain bee pollen, which is considered a superfood. Also look into a good formulated diet. These can often be found at veterinarian offices.

    Fresh Foods

    • While parakeets that have not been raised on fresh foods may not eat them at first, they will learn to eat them if you are patient and persistent in offering them these items. Parakeets should eat fruits, vegetables and greens. Apples and grapes are usually a favorite with parakeets. Many also love mango, cherries, oranges, papayas, melons, peaches, bananas and berries. Remember to dice the fruit into manageable sizes for your parakeet. Garden vegetables you might try include spinach, watercress, field lettuce, dandelions, chickweed, poppy, corn, carrots, peas, sweet potatoes, zucchini, green peppers and endive. On occasion, you might even use baby food, which contains fruits and vegetables. To encourage a parakeet that is used to only eating seeds, you can try sprouting the seeds. This process involves soaking the seeds, draining them, then placing them in a sprouting jar. Rinse the seeds several times a day until they begin to sprout.

    Additonal Supplements

    • On rare occasions (most especially if your parakeet is brooding) offer some proteins in the form of peanuts, cottage cheese, hard-boiled eggs, monkey chow or even dog food. Vitamins can be added to a parakeet's drinking water a couple of times a week. Add this in sparingly, or not at all if the parakeet is eating a wide variety of foods. A mineral block or cuttlebone should be added to the cage as it's necessary for a healthy beak. In a separate dish, you might offer bird sand or gravel and oyster shell to provide additional minerals.

    Do Not Add These Foods

    • Some foods can be toxic or indigestible to parakeets. Do not feed your parakeet any of these foods: raw and green potatoes, any sort of cabbage, grapefruit, lemon, plum, rhubarb, avocado, or dried fruits treated with sulphur dioxide. Avocado is especially dangerous and toxic to birds.